1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system that monitors a status of an image forming apparatus, and more particularly, relates to an acquisition of information from the image forming apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
A management system is conventionally known that collects operational information, which includes counter information indicating a number of printed sheets and a number of uses of parts and the like of an image forming apparatus connected to a network, failure information indicating faults and abnormalities such as paper jams, and remaining amount information indicating change of a remaining amount of consumables. The management system is constituted by a monitoring apparatus installed on a network of client destinations on which image forming apparatuses are installed, and a management apparatus that remotely manages the image forming apparatuses and the monitoring apparatus in centralized manner (Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2007-018500).
In the management system, two types of configurations for transmitting operational information of the image forming apparatuses to the management apparatus are available. The one is a configuration in which the image forming apparatus itself directly transmits the operational information to the management apparatus, and the other is a configuration in which the monitoring apparatus collects the operational information and the like from the image forming apparatuses, and thereafter, collectively transmits them to the management apparatus.
As described above, in the management system of the configuration in which the image forming apparatus itself directly transmits the operational information to the management apparatus, there is a problem that processing load at the time of receptions in the management apparatus is large, when a huge number of the image forming apparatuses are installed. In order to reduce the processing load, it is conceivable to additionally install the above-described monitoring apparatus as a relaying apparatus to the client's network.
Further, appropriate distribution of processing loads may be carried out by devising means of collecting the operational information, when image forming apparatuses are newly added to an environment in which the monitoring apparatus is already installed, depending on communication functions which the image forming apparatuses have.